McLaren

History

McLaren is one of the oldest active teams in F1, and has been in competition every year since 1966. The team was formed by New Zealand racer Bruce McLaren, who lost his life while testing one of the Can-Am cars which bore his name at Goodwood in 1970.

Four years later the team won its first world championship with Emerson Fittipaldi, and a second came in 1976 courtesy of James Hunt.

But the Teddy Mayer-run outfit fell down the grid before a takeover by Ron Dennis in the early 1980s. The reinvigorated outfit pioneered the carbon fibre chassis and became the dominant force in F1 from 1984 until the early nineties, with the likes of Niki Lauda, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna winning championship.

After splitting with Honda it found a new engine partner in Mercedes and added further championships in 1998 and 1999, Mika Hakkinen taking the drivers’ title in both years.

More might have followed in 2007 but the team was implicated in a scandal over alleged spying on rivals Ferrari. Given a record fine of $100m the team were thrown out of the constructors’ championship and both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso lost the drivers’ title at the last round by one point each. The team bounced back to win the drivers’ title with Hamilton in 2008.

It’s association with Mercedes came to an end in 2014. The following year it reunited with Honda for the first time since 1992.